The present invention relates to a new and distinct cultivar of Primula plant, botanically known as Primula ‘K 74’ and will be referred to hereinafter by its cultivar name, ‘K 74’. The new cultivar of Primula is a hardy herbaceous perennial grown for landscape use.
The new cultivar was derived from a controlled breeding program conducted by the Inventor at his nursery in Ballycastle, Northern Ireland. The overall purpose of the breeding program that was established in the 1980s is to make selections of Primula plants with unique and improved characteristics to plants from the ‘Garryard’ family of primroses, a group of Primula cultivars that emerged in the 1950s and had the common characteristic of having bronze colored foliage.
‘K 74’ was selected in the Inventor's greenhouse in 2006 as a single unique plant from amongst the seedlings derived from a cross made in 2003 between two unnamed plants of Primula acaulis from the Inventor's breeding program as the parents.
Asexual reproduction of the new cultivar was first accomplished by in vitro propagation in 2009 under the direction of the Inventor in Ballycastle, Northern Ireland. Asexual propagation has determined the characteristics to be stable and reproduced true to type in successive generations.